, and schools closed in a number of cities. forecasters predicted new england would get the worst of it with up to three feet of snow likely in boston. mayor thomas menino. >> this is a storm of major proportions. stay off the roads. stay home. let the public works crews do their job. >> brown: the region also braced for winds reaching 75 miles an hour that will pile up drifts and almost guarantee widespread power outages. as ever, the threat prompted shoppers to pack stores, stocking up on supplies. >> this is panic shopping, so bread, milk, a snow shovel in case our snow shovel breaks. >> you've got to plan ahead. a couple feet of snow would shut everything down and, who knows, it could be a couple of days, right? >> brown: in new york city, predictions called for as much as a foot of snow, and mayor michael bloomberg said the city had marshaled an army of plows and salt trucks. >> the sanitation department will deploy something like 1,700 snowplows and 65 front-end loaders. it also has 450 salt-spreaders already deployed. >> brown: the storm also focused new concern on the new york and new j
